7/17/2007 @ 6:00AM

America's Most Kooky-Wacky Candidates

When it comes to the most kooky-wacky candidates or potential candidates in America’s presidential sweepstakes, Dennis Kucinich comes in No. 1 by a wide margin. As for Republicans, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., takes top billing, though he trails far behind Kucinich and two other Democrats.

Some 29% of the population polled in the July edition of the Forbes ’08 Tracker, among the most unconventional polls in this year’s presidential contest, call Kucinich kooky-wacky. This month also marks the first appearance of the Democratic congressman from Ohio on the Tracker since previously fewer than 10% of those polled recognized him.

Now, thanks particularly to the televised presidential debates, Kucinich has passed the threshold. But while he’s the top Democrat in this category, former Vice President Al Gore ranks No. 2, if at a considerable distance. Just 10% of those sampled attach kooky-wacky as a trait that might define him. Following Gore are Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., at 8% and former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards at 6%.

Neither Forbes.com nor E-Poll, the California market research company that is conducting the polling, defines any of the 46 attributes on which it polls its sample population–the same traits it has used to select high-level spokespeople for advertising campaigns for more than a decade.

Politics, along with selling cars, television shows or any other product, has become a complex marketing process. The 46 attributes help define trends and key drivers of what moves a person to respond or react to the messaging and the messenger. In this case, the candidate’s name is given to the polled population, which is then asked to match whichever of the attributes it believes is appropriate for the candidate in question.

In this category, among some candidates, there is a substantial split along gender lines. While 14% of men polled found Gore kooky-wacky, just 7% of the women in the sample matched him with this attribute. There was an equally broad split for Clinton–11% of men assigned kooky-wacky to the senator, while only 6% of the women did so.

The top Republican turned out to be Sen. McCain with a 7% rating, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wound up in the No. 6 position–this month, just 5% picked him as kooky-wacky, though last month he was identified as the “creepiest” candidate in the Forbes ’08 Tracker. Some political blogs reported later that Gingrich told friends that he had worked half his life to achieve such a distinction.

As for the bottom of the list, Fred Thompson, who’s still in the exploratory committee phase of the campaign, turns out to be the least kooky-wacky–only 2% of those polled cite him as such, the same number that placed him last in the “creepiest” category last month. As was the case in June, that could be a tribute to the years he’s been dispensing folksy good common sense as the Manhattan district attorney on Law & Order. No respectable Hollywood script writer would put creepy words into that mouth.

New York’s real-life mayor, Mike Bloomberg, is kooky-wacky to just 3% of our population, below the 4% of those polled who identified him as creepy. Still, his national awareness has plateaued at 23% of our sample, despite his more than five years as mayor of America’s largest city, which indeed many beyond its borders also consider fairly kooky in its own right.

Still, the billion dollars of his own money he’s said to be prepared to commit to a presidential effort could change his personal image as well as boost his national awareness.